Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Luck Of The Irish #1: "Soulpunching and all." Starring Shygurl (Jin Wells)



***Foreword***

Dear Reader:
The next few blogs will be subtitled “Luck Of The Irish” - because it's me (HI! I'M CALLED PADDY!) asking 13 questions to people that I wanted to ask them to, because I could.

I will assume that you saw what I did there, and move on.

Be warned: If I'm accidentally any sort of interviewer, it's only because that's technically correct because I asked some questions, not because OH MY GOD, HOW GREAT WAS ANDREW DENTON AT INTERVIEWING? It's like he was the Mike Patton of interviewers: Creativity and Courage is a heady mix indeed.


See what I mean? I'm no journalist! I'm not even really a proper blogger - because a proper blogger can keep to a schedule. :\ 

But me, I'm all like: “What, sorry? That free thing that I didn't charge you for and didn't cost you anything didn't meet your standards? Well, have a Coke and a smile and whine more because it makes me less whiny by comparison.”.


Except for formatting, like when Stewart pointed out that he couldn't read the tables in the 'So To Speak' Blog entry, because iPhone. THAT is just bad planning/research. Sorry, Stewie.

Reader: “Hey, can I ask you a question, Paddy?”
Paddy: “Sure! I'd love to ans-”
Reader: “Is there any actual interviews coming up, or are you just going to carry on for ages?”
Paddy: (SIGH) “'Yes', 'no', and you surely meant 'Are'.”
Reader: “Ummm – What?”
Paddy: “You should have said 'are there any interviews blah blah blah', because you w-”
Reader: “Are you padding this? That's padding, isn't it? You're padding this out for a word count, aren't you?”
Paddy: “Read my name, wonder how I got it. NEXT. Good day, sir/madam.”
Reader: “This is going to be another one of your stupid in-jokes, isn't it? I can tell.”
Paddy: “I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR/MADAM.”

And without further ado - apart from this sentence - actually, I've always wondered why people say that. Why SAY it, when you could actually be getting on with it? I mean, now really.

Where was I?

Oh, right – of course.




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Our first interviewee (because 'subject' always sounds creepy) is the inimitable Virginia 'Jin' Wells, who is the cheery-and-playful-yet-always-professional singer/songwriter from one of my favourite local bands of all time, the very excellent Shygurl.



Shygurl Lineup (current):


Jin Wells - Keyboard/Guitar, Vocals
Jules Palmer - Guitar (Main), backing vocals

Mat Marshall - Bass, backing vocals
Will Groom - Drums/Percussion, backing vocals

Jin is the Headmistress of the Red Hot Music School, which is in the Red Hot Music Shop in Devonport. She also works in the shop itself, along with the guitarist from Shygurl, Julian 'Jules' Palmer (and many other fine people, for that matter).


PROTIP: Never call her Virginia. EVER. It's not worth it. If you do, she will punch you in your soul. Can you even imagine that, being punched in the soul? You can't, can you? Don't even try. Just don't ever call her that name. Don't do it to yourself. I remember how I had a soul once, before I called her Virginia. Then she punched my soul so hard that I cried memories for week. That doesn't even make sense. It felt weird. DON'T DO IT, MAN. DON'T DO IT.


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Luck Of The Irish #1:
"Soulpunching and all."
Starring Shygurl (Jin Wells)

Jin Wells: Singer, Songwriter, Soulpuncher.
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1 - How did the band initially form?


The band formed through friends of friends and work acquaintances, and we decided to get together and have a jam for something to do. We started on a few covers firstly, and then I (Jin) decided to give writing originals a try.

2 - Where did the name come from?

The name (Shygurl) was first brought up as a bit of a joke.


My mum (upon meeting Jules working in the music shop) commented how pleased she was that I was doing more with my music, as this is my first ever band.

"She used to be such a shy girl" I believe was the comment that sparked amusement enough to stick as a band name. However, we decided to change the "i" to a "u" to make it easier to distinguish!

(Author's note: It is indeed an awesome name, and the fact that it's all one word is a stroke of subtle genius. And, Dear Reader, if you're going to change the spelling of a word for a band name, never ever ever add an X, Y, or Z. Unless you're an '80s band. And you're not. So don't.)

Even The Wiggles had more sense than most '80s band, and The Wiggles work with animals and children.
But at least they aren't called 'The Wigglez'.

3 - Where was your first gig?

Our first gig was for a charity fundraiser, The Winter Solstice, a couple of years ago. We played 2 small sets and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to play for the first time live.


The Winter Solstice has since gone on to become a massive annual event, so perhaps some credit is due there...

(Author's note: I played there in 2012, and it was awesome. I don't imagine that it's wrong at all to say that Shygurl would have been a memorable act, and that some credit might be due to them for the success of the annual Winter Solstice, philosophically speaking at the very least.)


Jo Green (creator of the Winter Solstice Social Event) has an excellent blog named 'Faker'  which you should read. Right now. Well, finish THIS blog first. Obviously.

4 - Would you say that you're a live band, or a studio band?

Due to a few shufflings of band members and other commitments, the band is currently a studio band. We aim to change this in the future, however.

5 - Have you released any material so far?

Shygurl produced a home recorded demo "Snowglobe" a couple of years ago, and distributed it amongst friends and family.

(Author's note: That was where I first heard them.)


6 - What challenges did you face in recording Snowglobe?

So many challenges were faced in the recording of the demo!
We ended up putting more into it than what we had originally planned in order to get the best result. I think overall it was difficult to stand back and tell the differences because we had no outside opinions. We had all our own ideas and had to come to compromises to get the end result.


7 - Do you have any another material due to be released?

We currently have a mini-album on the cusp of being released. The album will be called "Marmalade" and consists of 6 previously unrecorded tracks, one of which, "Winters Lullaby', has been released on YouTube. We expect to release the full album towards the end of 2012.

(Author's note: If it isn't obvious, that's a link to free awesome music, that is.)


8 - What challenges did you face in recording Marmalade, as compared to Snow Globe?

The recording of Marmalade went to a whole new level.
We originally recorded everything ourselves again - but we had become more selective the 2nd time around, I guess. In short, we ended up getting a lot of parts re-recorded through Fatlip Studios with a massive difference in results due to better equipment, more experience and an outside opinion. The challenges I faced personally included learning to do many more vocal takes than what I was used to, being able to trust someone outside of the band with the songs, and sometimes staying awake in long mixing sessions!

I need to mention that all these challenges were definitely worth the end result.



(Author's note: My emphasis, not Jin's – we're coming back to this idea later on.)

Looking at a picture of some cute kittens can decrease stress in any situation, and recording fantastic music is no exception. I don't know if Shygurl actually employs this particular technique.

I just really wanted to use the picture. Because LOOK AT IT.

9 - Who writes the songs?

I write all lyric content and come up with the basic chord structure of the songs. After this I go to the band and we work on the fine tuning of the song. We usually come up with our own parts, and [on] some of the songs, Jules has added extra chords and bridge sections.

10 – How do you begin your songwriting process?

As far as the initial song writing process, I usually feel compelled to write by a new experience linked to a strong emotion. Quite often the lyrical content can be related to more than one experience of mine personally, but I have also written parts of songs from inspiration of someone else's experiences.

As far as the chord structure/melody goes, I just sit and let it come to me. I sometimes work out the chords first until I find something I like, other times I have sat and written words first then worked out chords later. It just depends on the day.


11 - Do you prefer the songwriting process, or the recording process?

I definitely prefer the song writing process!

There’s something very raw and satisfying about completing the basic structure of a song. When the band comes together to learn it for the first time it amplifies the power of the song in ways I never expect and it’s exciting to see where it can go.

The end result of recording is always good but it takes so much longer and you get sick of it pretty quickly. It's tiring, draining, frustrating... but it's worth it.

Jin: displaying for us what should be termed the 'Thousandth Time Stare'.


12 – What has been your approach for marketing and creating product awareness?

As far as our upcoming release of Marmalade goes, we've used mainly social media and word of mouth to create awareness.

We have a Facebook page, MySpace page, TripleJ Unearthed page, YouTube channel and I use my own Facebook to promote also.


As the CD release gets closer, we will more than likely pursue other avenues such as posters etc. for a CD launch event.

13 - How are you measuring your current success at marketing or creating product awareness?

Basically the best thing is that most of the internet social media sites have their own details of how many views your songs, posts, photos have. This is a really effective way for us to tell how many people are seeing our music. Working in a music shop is also a really good way of getting word around, and other musicians and friends will often ask how the band is going merely because they are in the shop.

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That was 13 questions, and that's the Luck Of The Irish for this week.
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(Thanks very much to Jin and Jules for their time and input into bringing this interview to life.) 

*************************************************


So, Dear Reader – what can we learn from Jin?


Because that's why we read interviews, isn't it? By learning more about others, we can learn more about ourselves.

  • We can learn the importance of level-headed funkiness, which is much harder to understand than it sounds.
  • We can learn that art is it's own reward, and that some artists are not in it for the money.
  • We can learn the value of hard work, and of getting the results of some of that hard work out there.
  • We can learn that being a musician is not all fun and games.
  • We can learn that art can be a chore, and we begin to understand why artistic productions are called works of art: if you're looking at the art, it's only because the artist has done the work.

Remember, 'labour' is another name for 'giving birth' - ideas are awesome, but only effort can bring things into existence. As an artist, you don't get paid for having great ideas - you get paid for implementing them. That's what being a creator means, literally. It means that you make stuff up from out of thin air, something that didn't exist before you set your mind to it – you create your work of art.

"A work of art is simply an idea realized; made physical."

Remember the part where she said she was having trouble staying awake during the mixing sessions?

That's either because they'd been going for hours, or because it was after work, or – more likely – for both of those reasons. Remember, this isn't her day job; she made a sacrifice for her art, because she is a creative type and that's how creative types roll.

Ideas are nice, but everyone has ideas. Everyone has ideas, but does everyone have the skill, the time, or the energy to make it become real?

Can you build something, based on your ideaOr do you buy something that someone else created, instead?


The world needs both types of people, because if nobody bought art, then nobody could sell it, either. And that would suck, because you can learn a lot more about a culture from looking at their art than you ever can from asking them directly.


Which brings me nicely to the main insight that I gained from the interview: your personality is always and unavoidably linked to your artworks. When you do something, it always turns out exactly how you did it. No matter wherever you go, there you always are. That's kinda cool.

In naming the band 'Shygurl', Jin also accepted who she was in the past, and then used that knowledge to create a new future for herself – a future which featured 'being in an awesome band', and all the other things that go along with it.

By wearing the name like a badge, she mocks the apparently uncaring nature of the very universe itself.


The seemingly innocent face of a known universe-mocker.

Seriously, look at her eyes. They're saying:

"Oh, Universe, you silly thing - is THAT all you've got? You're REALLY going to bring a knife to a gunfight? Just turn around and go home before you hurt yourself, Actually, make me a sandwich first. THEN go home. 
You funny old universe, you.
Off you go, little fellah. Run along now. And don't forget that sandwich!
"

I like both her attitude and her music very much, and I hope my two daughters grow up to be just like her - Soulpunching and all.


(Liam 'Paddy' Padmore wants to tell you that Shygurl's 'Marmalade' will be out “when it's out, probably at the end of 2012”, and you can catch them on YouTube via the link in the blog. And he just did.)

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Next week: Tune in as Paddy interviews Launceston-based actor/director David 'Q-Dog' Quinn, and gets the name of a college flashmob group horribly horribly wrong and refuses to edit it out, because 'comedy'.SEE! Quinnie's awesome face!
BELIEVE! You too will believe that a man can fly!

CAPITALIZE! Words at the start of a sentence to give off a B-Movie and/or '50s comic vibe!

Tune in to “Stardate: AWESOME” for the interview with – wait, that's not the name of my radio show. Wait, it's not a radio show, it's a blog.

Oh, just WATCH THIS SPACE, dammit.

(Note to self: create Radio Show called “Stardate: AWESOME” as soon as possible.)

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

#5.5 "Black Sabbath, Bitches."


"Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free"*

*(free to marry anyone we want, anyone at all. Unless you're both gay, of course.)

(When I use the word Gay, I mean Gay/Lesbian. Because I think that usage of the word 'lesbian' is sexist. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I have the keyboard and a strong opinion.) 

"We've golden soil, and wealth for..." uh, whatever the words are. Sorry, I'm still caught up on the obvious lie in that first line.

In Tasmania at the moment, there is discussion about the legalisation of Same-Sex Marriages.

This raises 2 questions:

1) Isn't this already a thing? What the F*CK year IS this?
2) So, let me get this straight: You can't tell someone you won't hire them because they're gay, but you can tell someone you won't allow them to be married because they're gay? So how is that not the exact same type of discrimination, exactly?

Now, here's another question: What's worse than someone not listening when someone else is talking?

We voted for people like this, and we feed their kids.
Yay us, I guess.


Same-Sex Marriage will not destroy Traditional marriage. How can it? It's based on it. You may be thinking of Zombies, perhaps. They would do that. Or maybe Vampires. You DO know that gays are just other people - nothing more and nothing less, right? Not monsters? Not aliens? Not 'okay to be told who to marry and who not to'? Because 'discrimination'?


Not pictured above: Gays.


And even if you're the type of person who believes that people are gay by choice: Why deny people the life that they want, solely on grounds of tradition? Who is anyone to tell anyone else how to live, beyond matters of safety?

This vote - this entire issue - is only being presented to us as Same-Sex Marriage. It's all of that and a bag of spuds, sure - but it's so, so, SO much more.

This is about one part of the government saying "We need to represent the people, because that's our job.", who are fighting the other part of the government, who are saying "Whatever. We still get paid. Also, The Bible."

Not pictured above: A gay dude.


Shouldn't all taxpayers have the same rights, whether they're into chicks or dicks?

(My thanks to Brady for that charming phrase)

Police don't get to make laws, willy-nilly. I'm inclined to say that the laws would make a lot more sense, and be a lot more practical if they could.

The Police are only there to do one job - enforce the policies which were created by people who wear suits and have no idea what our lives are actually like. People who make these policies are called Politicians. Unsurprisingly.

It's like there's some type of correlation between the words 'Police' and 'Policy' and 'Politician' somewhere. Quick, someone call Michael Moore! There's, like, a conspiracy and stuff or not or whatever.

"Hmmm - the only mystery I can see is the fact that you think that's interesting, Paddy.
Also, why haven't you used a picture of a Vampire, yet? Oh, right - of course. "


It is up to the Government to make HUMANE policies, so that the poor old Police aren't in the unenviable position of enforcing INHUMANE policies. Because they will, if they need to.

For instance, Cannabis - which has never killed anyone - is still illegal, while Alcohol and Cigarettes - which both actually kill people with alarming regularity - are completely legal.

And this makes sense HOW, exactly? SERIOUSLY?

And the cops enforce this anti-social law, because that's their job. Because they love their families and don't want them to starve. The cops are just as bound by the law as the rest of us, if not more so. But I get to sit back and comment on it - they're the ones who risk their safety for the order that I so hate because it cramps the living daylights out of my style and busts up my groove to such a highly tuned degree as to make me think that the world is a giant mousetrap designed to break me for THE MATRIX or some shit like that.

NO! You can't make me! You're not my real mother!
Mmmm.... Steak. Yummy.
What was I saying?



WELL, IT DOES.

I don't see many politicians risking their career for the same idea of order, let alone their lives. If cops are like soldiers (and they are, bless 'em), then many politicians are like war pigs ("Why don't they go out to fight? They leave that up to the poor.").


The reason that this Same-Sex Marriage issue matters so much is because it could clear the path for policies that create understanding and compassion, and actual social cohesion - instead of the usual financially and/or religiously inspired fear.

It matters because they're listening to us - the PEOPLE - and actually doing their JOB (some of them at least), instead of getting all their info from a 2,000 year old handbook written for a male-oriented Middle-Eastern Farming/Fishing community, which was allegedly ghost-written by an invisible magical sky wizard who looks like Kenny Rogers.

"Lo, and verily - upon the seventh day did the gambler he break even."


Or some bribery. ALWAYS with the bribery. Oh, sorry - I meant 'Lobbying'. Because that's sooo totally different from bribing. It's, like, spelt and pronounced completely differently and everything. Totally different. Not even remotely like legal bribery or anything.

It matters because it shows us that not all politicians are in it for themselves - or that if they are, that they will still stick their neck out for our beliefs. Or that some of them are even still human. Even if you don't agree with their actions, you MUST respect their courage. They're showing us that not all politicians are war pigs. That matters. Because it gives us faith in the system - the one that Kafka described so well.

(Just for the record, when I say 'us' there, I mean 'you' - I'm having trouble seeing any good in the system that isn't immediately shat upon by something else in the system. But that's my issue.)

But ring-a-ding-ding, here's the thing:

Do you know why the government always give us shitty laws and rules, that don't actually represent our needs or desires? Because we let them.

No, I'm not talking about a riot. Are you insane? Good God, man/woman! This isn't the '70s anymore!

You can tell it's not the '70s, because all the music sucks ass now.

Niki Minaj: Role model for young children, possible candidate for new Bob Jane T-Mart ad campaign.

This Same-Sex Marriage vote matters, because we have had a say in 'HOW HIGH' they expect us to jump. In what they will consider 'HUMANE'. In how mature we are, as a society. But we have to tell them, because they're NOT mind readers.

So: "What's worse than someone not listening when someone else is talking?"


Someone not talking when someone else is listening.


I just wrote a damn blog and shared the f*ck out of it - what have you done to make your voice heard lately?

(Liam 'Paddy' Padmore is as straight as f*ck, but many of his favourite people aren't.)